Xilanada - The Four Fold Dissonance/Part 7

The Essence drained away from her at last, and Xilanada fell to the street.

Thunderous power diminished, faded, pouring out of her body into the air, into the street, into the stone she lay against. It felt like all the blood was leaving her body. Her strength was spent and she could only lie weakly on the ground.

Agony swept across her, leaving her helpless to tremble against the raw force of pain. Her muscles spasmed and her hands screamed silently. So this is what it felt like, to push an untrained body beyond its limits.

She had used more than a dozen Charms to get through that battle. It had taken most of her full strength but the might of the Solar lay in their power against adversity. The harder the Hunt had fought her, the stronger she'd grown.

It was almost not enough.

Those Charms, combined with decades of Dynastic sword training and 50 years of perfecting Exalted sword styles in Denandsor, had proven the Wyld Hunt's undoing. Even they could not stand against her Unfettered Tide of Mortality technique. But she was paying the price for it now, if in a different way then they had.

This Xilanada had never lifted a sword in her life and she could tell by the hot, stickiness on her hands that she'd hurt herself doing it. More than that, a dangerous burning in her blood told of the price she'd paid to unlock her power again. The Eclipsing Ephemerality Prana had been a strange and obscure Charm tucked away in the library's many books. It took her thirty years to learn enough about Essence to even comprehend the text, though once she had it had come easily enough.

Her memories were faint but the truth was obvious. Final Starry Night had used the Charm before ceasing to be and it had fooled even herself. It had taken great anger for her to break through its blocks tonight. The books warned that ending the Charm without taking the time to reattune one's own Essence could kill its user. She had survived but the pain in her blood told her that it hadn't been without cost.

That and the Sorcery. It had taken her full strength just to fight the Wyld Hunt. In fighting her, their power had become her own thanks to her Essence-Gathering Temper, but it hadn't quite been enough either, not for magics of that power. Only the training and enlightenment on the use of Essence from 50 years of studying the best texts of the First Age had given her the ability to do it. That and burning her own health, her life to do it.

Breaking the Prana, using grand-scale Sorcery, and fighting with a body unsuited to it. Xilanada wondered if she was going to die.

A hand brushed across her face, sliding the mask off and caressing the blonde curls that had fallen across her eyes. Through the agony, Xilanada felt a moment of panic. She was crippled for the moment, in more pain than she could ever remember, and she was glowing. Someone could see who she was!

But then she saw the pallor of the hand on her face, turning her up toward the night sky. Above her, a white woman's beautiful face was lit up by the light still shining from Xilanada's prone form. Green eyes, slitted like a snake, were filled with an emotion more recognizable than she wanted to see.

"Coil," she breathed. Even the softest word hurt thanks to having pushed her body to speeds it had never moved before. The name hurt more, though.

"Night," her Lunar mate whispered back.

And Xilanada yearned for her. It was a sudden, magnificent feeling that slid silk-soft throughout aching frame, pooling under her skin. It was entirely different from the fierce hard throbbing that Final Starry Night had felt, and yet no less pleasant for it. She saw the same passion echoed in Solitary Coil's own eyes and face, a longing, a yearning that could only be fulfilled when they were together.

Her wife's face loomed closer, lips parting as need drew them together. Until Xilanada eyes looked more closely and saw the blood still on those lips, the crimson trailing down the side of her face. Xilanada winced and turned away.

When some moments had passed, she looked back and saw the Lunar woman crouching over her. She sighed wearily. That hurt too, but she was getting used to the idea that she was going to be hurting no matter what she did. That included this conversation.

"Coil. What do you want?"

"What do I...Night, what do you think I want?" She sounded surprised. Hurt. Xilanada gritted her teeth.

"My name's not Night."

Those words hung between them. Xilanada could see that, for the first time, recognition of all that had changed was setting in for her...for Final Starry Night's wife.

"Then who are you?" Coil said, swallowing, wincing at the motion. Xilanada's own throat felt thick and full, as if had a hefty rock mortared there.

"I'm...my name is Xilanada. And I'm just a teacher now."

"Xilanada?" Coil blinked in surprise. Anger set in. "Xilanada's dead, Night. She's been dead for a millennia!"

"Nonetheless, I am Xilanada now. That's who I am. That's...who I want to be."

"I don't...I won't pretend to understand why you would. I have no idea at all why you're trying to be who you used to be. You can't be her! Don't you understand that? Just because you read about her, just because you remember who your last incarnation was...you can't be her! That's not your destiny, and you know it!"

"Xilanada was a better woman than Final Starry Night ever was a man, Coil." The Lunar hissed at her, but Xilanada knew there was no danger from her. "What of it, if I want to take the name of Xilanada, Librarian of Denandsor? She at least lived a moral life. She never slew an army of innocent men and women! She never destroyed so many people...just to be proved right!"

Somehow, those last words came out in a scream and Xilanada collapsed on her side again. Blinding black and red pain throbbed in her, rattling her like a powerless child, reminding her that she had already pushed herself past her limits tonight.

"They were cattle, Night!" Coil seethed. "Cattle! They stood against us. They stood in our way! You remember, don't you, Night? Remember the glories of the Solar! Remember the glories of the First Age!" Solitary Coil's eyes gleamed with memory, memory they both shared. "Remember the time when you and I were rulers over the world, when the Solar and Lunar ruled Creation. Because we were chosen by the Gods themselves! With our Exaltation, we could do a better job of it than anyone else! Yes, our kind got decadent at the end. I'd even say the Usurpation was deserved. But we are not those people! We won't make their mistakes. You and I can take back the place that belongs to us."

"Just...come with me, Night," she pressed, her words as intense as her face. "Come with me and help me free Creation from the Dragon-Blooded! Remember what you said as you struck back the Wyld Hunt? Remember what you announced to Nexus? Those words meant something! Come with me! It will be as good as it ever was before, my love. Even if you...even if..."

Coil stopped for a moment, anguish twisting those pale, pretty features. Xilanada sympathized, for she knew exactly what she felt. "Even if you are...a woman," Coil said at last. "Even so, you are my Solar. I am your Lunar. Ever was it so that we were husband and wife. If we are to be...wife and wife, than I'm willing to bow my head to it. Because I love my Goddess. And because...I love you, Night. I. Love. You."

Hot liquid tears seemed to etch their paths across Xilanada's cheeks, like acid so harshly did they burn. She took a shuddering breath, searching her heart for a way, any escape. But the answer was what she knew it would be.

"My name...is not Night. I am Xilanada. I'm a schoolteacher. And I want nothing to do with your war. With the war a man named Final Starry Night and his wife, Solitary Coil, championed. I am not that person, nor will I ever be. Ever again."

"But..." Solitary Coil's voice failed as her own tears fell. "But why?" she managed. Those two words seemed to encompass a universe of pain and incomprehension. Coil was bleeding in her own way, a hurt animal who couldn't understand why her mate had turned on her. Xilanada bled with her, for she knew what she was doing as she dealt those wounds.

"Because...because I can't take responsibility for that many lives.  I won't.  Because a man named Final Starry Night had that power, the power to raise and destroy an army, the nation, the world.  And he failed!  He failed to use his power...the way he should have.  He failed the Sun, Coil!  And he failed himself."

She drew up herself, dredging herself for the final energy to speak.

"I...will not be...that man. Please, Coil. Just leave me be. Just...leave me be."

The night sky seemed to be lightening and Xilanada winced, knowing what was coming. In her folly, she thought she had left behind Final Starry Night's failings. His arrogance, his pride. But the moment she had lifted that mask, the moment she had picked up that sword and summoned her Charms, she had become the Destroyer again.

She could not be trusted with this power. So she would deny it again, as Final Starry Night had before her.

The Eclipsing Ephemerality Prana danced in her mind, the ancient, obscure magic promising her a way out of this. She knew the price it would exact. She paid it gladly.

Her breath caught and burst out into a scream as her body arched. The blazing light of her Anima seizured for several moments before collapsing inward, dying back into the Exalt it came from. The power of the Solar filled her with irresistible pressure, threatening to burst her body asunder with its sheer potency.

It was an eon of pain before Xilanada won the battle and locked the power away. It could cost her life, as badly abused as her body was right now, but it was done. What Charms she knew would come sluggishly to her command now, if at all, and Sorcery was impossible. Until the day she released the Charm and accepted the harm such a release would do to her, just as it already had tonight.

Xilanada prayed that day would never come.

With the recession of power came awareness. With that awareness, the knowledge that Solitary Coil was cradling her, whispering soothing words to her, rocking her and letting her tears fall freely.

"Don't die, Night...please don't do this to yourself. Don't die..."

"Coil," Xilanada breathed. "My name...is Xilanada."

"Xilanada," Coil sniffed. "Will you...are you going to survive?"

"I should," Xilanada whispered, more weary than she could ever recall feeling. Her spark of life flickered within her, but she could feel it still burning. "I will. Go away. I'll be fine. Go back...to your armies, Coil. Go back...to your conquest. Leave this...teacher alone. Away from it."

"Luna damn your eyes!" Solitary Coil flared, grief transforming into fiery rage. "You simpering weakling! Why won't you fight? Why won't you take your destiny? It's yours. You owe it, to me, to the Sun!"

"Just...go."

"Look, Xilanada," Coil snarled, pronouncing her name as if it were a curse. "Look into the sky and see what righteousness is! See what you've wrought! Look on your power and see!" Helpless to turn away, too weak to flee, yet not weak enough to turn her eyes, Xialanda watched.

The blackness of the night was rent in twain and a horrible keening scream lashed the city as a massive boulder of Skystone and Starmetal hurled into sight. Where it fell, it left a burning whiteness from the heat of its passage. And where it was to fall was squarely upon the Tower of the Council itself.

The grandiose structure soared ten stories into the air, one of many proud thrones over the Great City of the East, though not the equal of the Guild’s Tower. It was, however, completely imperishable by anything devised by mortals today. No power, no Essence, no Charm, no Sorcery had ever marred its great walls and graceful contours.

Even as the meteor fell, a brilliant shimmering emerald shield mantled the tower. Despite the Tower's imperishability, it seemed that the Council of Entities and its Emissary were taking no chances.

Coil cried out in ecstasy and awe as the meteor at last came down and collided squarely against the Tower and its shields. The green flared hotly in warning, brightening, brightening until the light was bright enough to dazzle the eyes of every living citizen of Nexus still awake. Then, it collapsed.

The street itself shook and Xilanada cried out as she was thrown up into the air and dashed into the street again. Her strength gave out, and she receded into a black void where pain and love couldn't touch her.